"After many months of research, the fragments were determined to be from a 1712 first edition of a book by Captain Edward Cooke, “A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World, Perform’d in the Years 1708, 1709, 1710 and 1711.”

16 tiny fragments of paper were discovered in a mass of wet sludge removed from the chamber for a breech-loading cannon. (....)

Although books like these voyage narratives would have been relatively common on ships of the early 18th century, archaeological evidence for them is exceedingly rare, and this find represents a glimpse into the reading habits of a pirate crew.